Raspberry-Almond Cookie Bars

By srumbel

You know those times when you need a treat and you’ve got to just go with whatever is in your pantry at the moment?? Everyone needs a few go-to recipes in the arsenal for times like that. At my house, those recipes include these Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, standard No-Bakes, and these little beautiful squares of deliciousness. I almost always, always, have everything I need on hand for these. It’s just flour, sugar, butter, oats, egg, and whatever jam I can scrape up in the fridge or pantry. They’re also really quick to mix up. Easy peasy.
from ourbestbites.com

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
• 1 cup old fashioned oats
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt (if using table salt, decrease to 1/2 teaspoon)
• 1 cup butter (2 sticks) at room temperature
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
• 3/4 cups raspberry preserves
• 1 tablespoon coarse turbinado sugar, optional

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8×8 pan with a parchment sling (lay an 8″ strip of parchment across bottom of pan so it hangs over each end, and then lay another the opposite direction. Alternately you could just line the pan with foil, or simply spray with non-stick spray. Lining the pan makes it easy to remove the bars and cut.)

Combine flour, white and brown sugars, oats, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Cut butter into chunks and add to bowl along with beaten egg and almond extract. Turn mixer on and let mix until the mixture comes together into a cohesive dough that looks like coarse crumbs. Remove 2 cups of dough (about half) and set aside. Press remaining dough into the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread preserves on top, avoiding the very edge of dough. Take remaining dough and crumble on top of preserves in an even layer. If desired, sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until slightly golden brown on top. Cool completely before cutting into squares.